Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Blue Cabinet

This cabinet is one of many projects we have taken on over the past few weeks. Today my goal is to finish painting the interior shelves. This has taken way too long to complete! With three little ones underfoot, I find it hard to find time to devote to projects such as this.

Friends of ours own a local antique shop. Most of their furniture has been beautifully refinished to look like new, but every so often we come across a piece that needs just a little t.l.c. About a month ago, we came across this piece in one of their outbuildings. Believe it or not, this cabinet came from one of the Senate office buildings in D.C. It had a dark finish, but needed some cleaning up. Part of the trim above the glass doors was missing, so my husband replaced the trim.

The molding at the top was already there, my husband replaced the smaller molding a few inches below. Before, it was just a plain strip of wood trim.

My husband was too quick to get started on sanding and replacing the trim, so I did not get a "before" shot with the doors on. He is very ambitious, hence the many projects we have going on. My parents thought we were crazy to paint this piece, but it definitely needed something. I was originally thinking of a creamy white china cabinet to go along with the living room decor, but once we came across this piece, I thought it would look good in a Gustavian gray or blue. The first coat of paint was done in Martha Stewart's Milk Pail, but that had a hint of green to it and wasn't quite the look I was after. I ended up repainting it Behr's Ozone and the interior is a creamy white, Behr's Polished Pearl. It turned out a little more blue than gray, but I kind of like it. I hate to tell you how long we've been looking for some kind of display cabinet for this space, but we'll talk about my indecisiveness another time.